A week later, the theft and/or purchase of U.S. Army and Navy supplies paled into insignificance, the vagaries of a legendary volcano determining the immediate course of nefarious activity for both Neapolitans and two British airmen stationed at Portici. On the seventeenth of March, Mount Vesuvius began to erupt, eyewitnesses, including British and American troops stationed nearby, reporting molten lava spewing from the caldera. Vineyards on the mountain slopes were quickly destroyed by the lava stream, which continued to flow onto the plain for many days. Villages on the western side were evacuated, the U.S. military, in the absence of Italian officials, taking control of public safety. Only one village, San Sebastiano, was annihilated, but on the eastern side, U.S. Army Air Force 340th B
